Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is talking about a group that does not support or has not applauded this particular committee. He should consider the comments, in terms of the chair of this committee, from a number of other groups that he seems to want to ignore.
I have a letter from the Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia, supporting the appointment of Bryan Williams as the independent chairperson to lead the integrated salmon harvest planning committee's 2004 salmon post-season review. It states that Mr. Williams' long experience as a barrister in British Columbia makes him well suited to the task of finding answers to many questions that surround management of the 2004 Fraser sockeye fishery.
Then there is a media release from the Sierra Club of Canada, an environmental organization that is very well known. Vicky Husband, conservation chair of Sierra Club of Canada, stated:
Sierra Club of Canada, B.C. Chapter is applauding Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s appointment of former B.C. Chief Justice Bryan Williams as Chair of the 2004 salmon post-season review...We believe that Mr. Williams has the skills to work with the representatives of the Integrated Harvest Planning Committee to recommend meaningful changes in the future management of southern B.C.’s salmon fisheries.
We have the B.C. Aboriginal Fisheries Commission which put out a news release. The leader of the B.C. Aboriginal Fisheries Commission, Arnie Narcisse, says that his organization welcomes the appointment of former justice Bryan Williams, Q.C., to lead the forthcoming investigation into fisheries management practices on B.C.'s south coast and the probable causes for the major shortfall in spawning populations of Fraser River sockeye in the summer of 2004. “In my opinion”, he says, “Bryan Williams brings the breadth of experience and necessary impartiality British Columbians expect in someone charged with the task of getting to the bottom of fisheries management practices”.
Let us consider Mr. Williams' credentials. We know that he is a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. I know my colleagues do not have much appreciation for courts and judges. We know their views on the charter of rights, for example, and things like that. The fact is that this is a very distinguished, retired jurist. Not only does his experience extend to the courts, he has also been national president of the Canadian Bar Association. He has been the founding president of the Law for the Future Fund, a governor of The Law Foundation of British Columbia, chair of the Legal Services Society of British Columbia, a commissioner of the British Columbia Law Reform Commission, and former board member of the Canadian Institute for Administration of Justice. He has been a governor of The Canadian Unity Council, a member of the steering committee of the Pacific Salmon Endowment Fund, director of the World Wildlife Fund Canada, and director of the British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
I think those credentials, and there are many more, speak for themselves. The fact is that this committee, as I said before, is in response to one of the recommendations of the panel of an inquiry that was held in the summer of 2002. I have heard colleagues often say we have not responded to those recommendations. Here is an example of where we have, and they fail to recognize it. The integrated harvest planning committee is a response to one of those recommendations. It is an important group.